If you’re in Los Angeles Friday night, the happening place to be is at the SENS Foundation event at Giant Studios, where the fantastic Na’vi characters in Avatar were brought to life, along with Gollum in Lord of the Rings and thousands of other creatures, using advanced motion-capture tech.

Legendary Cambridge University scientist Dr. Aubrey de Grey, who pioneered SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence), will give a brief overview of SENS science, and SENS Executive Vice President Sarah Marr will reveal what is driving the Foundation to create a whole new biotech industry — “rejuvenation biotech.”

One such revolutionary biotech is printing organs. Keith Murphy, CEO of Organovo will also talk about the brave new world of 3D printing of tissues with the company’s amazing NovoGen MMX Bioprinter, the world’s only commercial bioprinter that creates tissue. (See video below.)

After drinks, Giant Studios Director of Business Development Paul Hynek will conduct a tour of the studios.

As we were “going to press” with this post, Arizona-based businessman Jason Hope announced Thursday a $500,000 donation to SENS Foundation. “I have had great interest in the SENS Foundation and Dr. Aubrey de Grey’s work for some time now,” he said. “I believe their work is essential to the advancement of human medicine and their approach to the overall problem of human aging and its associated diseases (Alzheimer’s, Atherosclerosis, Diabetes, etc.) is the only way to go.

“Their work and the work of others that they support will drive the complete redefinition and reshaping of the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries as we know them today. The advancement of rejuvenation biotechnologies is not only extremely important, but it is the future.”